What drives you to write?

To earn some green-backs and keep the wolves from the door? To earn praise? Create a community?

Or maybe you’re convinced your story will help someone else? Or that you can help other people find important information?

Are you compelled to write because you’ll settle for nothing less than changing the world?

You know how to get to Carnegie Hall, right?

Motivation, man, motivation.

Okay, so I mangled the old joke, but the point remains — you won’t get far unless you’re motivated.

Just any old motivation won’t do either – it has to be the right motivation and you have to be honest about what it is.

If you’re writing to build a business, but your real motivation is attention and validation from peers, you’re going to go off the rails.

Dan Pink, author of the terrific new book Drive, says that real, self-directed motivation is based on three things — autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

When we’re motivated, we achieve all of these things. So why do we think it’s so normal to be unmotivated?

Lack of motivation isn’t normal

Notice when you’re not motivated.

Don’t get used to it and teach yourself that it’s normal. It isn’t.

When your motivation starts to slip, you need to address it immediately. It’s telling you something is wrong with the way you’re thinking about your work.

Maybe you don’t feel like you have autonomy any more. Or that you’re not growing as a writer. Or that your work no longer has purpose.

Let it slide and your declining motivation will strip your confidence until you forget why you ever wanted to write in the first place.

How do you fix motivation that’s starting to slip?

If you’re unmotivated, start by looking back to Pink’s three factors:

1. Give yourself more autonomy

When you’re able to have a say over what you write, how you write it, and when you write it, your work becomes a task you can tackle with creativity and a greater sense of ease.

That may mean you need to make room to work on your own projects, rather than spending all of your time on other people’s deadlines. Or it may just mean that you need to be more conscious of what kind of clients you’re working to attract.

2. Increase your sense of mastery

If you’re able to increase your skills and capability as a result of your writing, then you’re really onto a winner. You get something done and you get better in the process.

Work on your craft. Get passionate about the fine points of whatever kind of writing you do. Push yourself to get better every day.

3. Expand your sense of purpose

If your work means something to you, it feels right, like you’re making a real contribution.

Know that what you do is important. Know how it benefits your clients. Work on projects that support your values, rather than conflicting with them.

But . . . motivation isn’t everything

It’s nice to read about drive and passion. That message is everywhere. And while it might end up making you feel lovely inside, it doesn’t offer you any insight as to why passion and motivation aren’t enough.

See, what Dan Pink didn’t mention is that while congruent motivation and the ability to course-correct are essential parts of success, no amount of motivation can be enough without a supporting belief.

As Bruce Lee once said, water adapts to any container. In other words, your life shapes itself and adapts to the barriers you’ve set. It doesn’t matter if you pour 20,000 gallons or a glass of water into an empty swimming pool, the water is constrained by the dimensions of the pool.

How big is your swimming pool?

You could have all the motivation in the world to build your business, but if you have a belief that says you “can’t” or that you’re “not good enough,” then guess what?

You’ve just built a wall that stops that motivation in its tracks, or at the very least turns it into one hell of a struggle.

Your beliefs about your writing and your ability to build a meaningful business act like the circuit-breaker in your home, shutting down the power when there’s a perceived risk.

But here’s the thing — you don’t need protecting. Those beliefs that limit you and keep you “safe” in your comfort zone aren’t necessary.

If you were a house, you’d be one that can grow and move. You’d be a house that can add, remove, and re-order rooms as it needs to. You’d be a house that can rewire itself on the fly. You’d be a house that can repair itself and strengthen itself. You’d be a sentient house with arms and legs and hair and . . . okay, the house metaphor’s gone too far.

Here’s what it boils down to:

You’re more than a match for any challenge

Your capability is bigger than any problem your business can throw at you. You are designed to take on meaningful challenges and learn what’s necessary to succeed.

You’re great at stuff. Really, you are. But you won’t be able to do any of it until you reset the boundaries of your beliefs so that they allow your motivation to flow where it needs.

Build a pool with no boundaries and what you’ve got is an ocean for your motivation to swim in.

About the Author: As a leading confidence coach with clients around the world, Steve Errey has a reputation for talking sense and getting results. Get more from him at The Confidence Guy.

You know what I’ve discovered? Most of the people writing about blogging are experts. Funny thing, that.

These expert bloggers have been doing it for a while and they have thousands (if not tens or hundreds of thousands) of subscribers. The best give lots of free stuff away that’s actually worth reading, and we know we’re standing on the shoulders of giants when we follow their advice.

And all that’s good. Don’t get me wrong.

But when I first started blogging about six months ago, I struggled to find a succinct summary all in one place. I spent a full day online giving myself an MBA -– Masters in Blogging (Advanced). I subscribed to this, downloaded that, printed out something else, read everything I could without my eyes becoming permanently crossed.

Because I couldn’t find what I needed — a straightforward checklist-style guideline to getting started as a newbie — I put my own together.

Does a newbie have anything to teach you?

I know what you’re thinking:

What does this Jill person know about brilliant blog posts? She’s just getting started herself.

I’ll readily confess my own lack of experience. My knowledge is growing (subscribing to copyblogger is helping), but my confidence still lags behind what I’m learning.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? I reckon there might be a few others who are in this same boat. And it’s to these newbies (and maybe some more experienced bloggers who are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of info about How To Blog So your Bank Balance Explodes) that I write today.

I broke it down into 17 (relatively) easy steps, so you can find everything in one place. Use this post checklist-style, to start writing the kind of content that attracts links and readers:

Four factors to remember before you start to write

1. Write a draft headline. You’ll come back to it at the end, and it may very well change and evolve. But a basic proposition and a compelling hook will help guide your content.
2. Make sure you have one idea per post. My first draft post had about 47 ideas in it. This turned out to be a good thing. Once I got it through my camera battery-sized brain that my post was too complex, I then had 47 possible posts, which should keep me going for about six months. But I did have to trim that first post (and every subsequent one) down to One Idea. When in doubt, leave it out.
3. Make sure you know your purpose. What are you trying to accomplish with this post? Are you hoping to sell a product? Get referrals? Attract links? Be bookmarked on Delicious? Get lots of attention on Twitter and Facebook? Disclose some irrelevant personal information to a bevy of strangers? (The first five are recommended, the last one should be undertaken with extreme caution.)
4. Who are you writing to? Come up with an ideal reader, with a full set of personality characteristics. This is a person who loves what you do, buys everything you sell, and tells everyone they ever meet about you and your site. Write to that person, whether fictional or real. My ideal reader is Carolyn, who happens to be a real person who lives in Boston. When I write, I imagine it’s a (semi) personal note from me to Carolyn.

I’ll give you an example for that last point. After the enormous success of her memoir eat pray love, Elizabeth Gilbert was harassed and harangued to write another best seller that millions of readers around the world would want to read. (And as a platform for a movie that Julia Roberts would want to star in.)

No pressure there.

Gilbert says that she tried for months to write that book, and failed. She threw her first attempt at Committed away because she was trying to write to the millions and it just wasn’t working.

She ended up writing the book for a small circle of women who know, love, and support her. The millions who ended up buying and reading the published book came later.

So, to sum it up: come up with a solid headline, for a post based on one idea, with a clear purpose, and for a single ideal reader. Now you’re ready to start writing this sucker!

Eight idea sparks for more compelling content

Here are some tried-and-true techniques that can help you write stronger posts. Try igniting one or more of these idea sparks when your fingers are on the keyboard but your brain is drawing a blank.

1. Make it eye-friendly. If you use them wisely, a nice bunch of fascinating bullets is a great way to break up your copy and make it easy to read.
2. Embrace the list post. Building a post around a numbered list is still one of the strongest ways you can organize content. If you’re skeptical, take a look at those “popular posts” to the right. See a few numbers in those headlines?
3. Examples and stories. What has your own journey been? What light bulb moments have you had? Where do the themes you write about show up in the everyday? (Seth Godin is the master of this; study how he does it.) And how does this relate to what you do and to the products/services you are selling?
4. What are you reading and watching? Articles, news stories, research papers –- all good stuff to refer to and comment on, drawing a connection back to what you do.
5. NEWS FLASH! Is something in your world new? Have a project launch in the works? What about a speaking gig or workshop you are running? Perhaps someone well-known in your field is coming to town? You can use your own news flashes or “borrow” other people’s, they both work.
6. Interviews. Who’s fascinating to your readers and willing to give you some time? Ask them some good questions, write their responses down, then wrap it all up with a jazzy conclusion.
7. Challenges and bugbears. What’s bothering you or your (potential) customers? Offer input to help them with their real or imagined problems, or talk about how you overcame something on the dark side.
8. Who do you admire? Pick a famous person and write about the link between something about them (their work, their interests, their charity appearances, their drug rehab story of pain) and how it relates to your own work.

Five last things to check before you post

You’re nearly done! You’ve created some killer content (well, it just about killed you, anyway), so now it’s time to wrap up.

Let’s finish off with some style! Five quick things to remember here:

1. Hyperlinks. Linking out is an important part of developing relationships with other bloggers, and it’s also helpful for SEO. Try to include a hyperlink about every 120 – 200 words.
2. Make your last paragraph sing. Give us a call to action (tell us what to do), make us an offer we can’t refuse (and put a ticking clock on it), or reach a surprising conclusion.
3. Come full circle back to your title. Does it need any tweaking to reflect your content (your one idea, your clear purpose, and to speak to your ideal reader)? Is it compelling? Is it something your readers will want to bookmark, link to, and share?
4. Do a final check for structure. How does the post look on the page? Have you broken all that text up so it’s easy for us to read?
5. Say something about yourself. You know, it could start with “About the Author:”

How about you — what’s on your own personal “checklist” for creating brilliant posts? Let us know in the comments.

Want more easy steps to online marketing success? You’re in luck — Copyblogger has a free online newsletter to help you with that. Click here to find out more about it.

About the Author: Jill Chivers is a quick study. Since starting her blogging career six months ago, she has made many fine mistakes. She intends to use this terrific checklist to improve her own blog posts. From her home base of the Sunshine Coast, Australia, Jill presides over her new online business, which helps her customers resolve tricky problems of all kinds.

There’s a wonderful European-style market and bakery in the Oak Lawn area of Dallas. They serve everything from made-to-order salads and sandwiches to chef-prepared, ready-to-eat meals.

But what I love most about the place is the sign on the door when you leave. It’s classic.

The sign doesn’t read “Please Come Again” or “Thank You for Your Business” or some other typical exit sign platitude.

It says . . .

“See you tomorrow.”

That kind of confidence is compelling and downright sexy. Sure, a fantastic product, service, or experience is the starting point from which confidence comes, but too many people play it scared and safe even when what they offer is truly great.

I’m not talking about arrogance. Arrogance is an indication of fear, not assurance.

Too many people, however, approach copywriting from a defensive mindset. You’re already back on your heels from the start, instead of proudly sharing your excellence with the people who can benefit most from it.

After all, if you’re not confident in your product or service, why should anyone else be? Confidence is a strong attractor because it assures people they’re making the right choice.

So, check out these tips for confident writing.

And we’ll see you tomorrow.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and wants you to know that Thesis + Scribe = SEO Made Simple. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

Want lots more tips for producing confident copy and content? Sign up for the Copyblogger newsletter. It’s free, and it’s the smartest way to get the very best advice about how to effectively market online.

Raise your hand if you’re a writer.

Now, raise your hand if you have a nice-sized ego.

And now, raise your hand if you lied on that last one and kept your hand down.

The thing is, writing and a big ego kind of go hand in hand. And if you haven’t quit, gone crazy, or offed yourself yet — which I know you haven’t because you were just raising your hand — then like it or not, you have a big ego.

How do I know this? Well:

• On some level (even if you moan and whine about how you aren’t a famous writer yet or how no one is paying for your brilliance yet or you don’t have your blog to book deal yet), you believe that your words are worth something and that other people should be reading them. It’s okay to admit this; it’s a good thing.
• You want people to read your writing. Because you know it’s good and it makes an impact and it feels divine to share it.
• Positive feedback doesn’t just feel good, it’s the ultimate validation of something that you already know: that you’re a writer (dammit).

The Talk

When it comes to writing copy for clients, however, you and your big ego are going to have to have “the talk.” It’s the same talk you had with your kid brother when you were 13.

Yes, you can walk with me to the park, but no, you can’t play basketball with me and my friends.

The fact is, we need our ego to walk us to the park. We need it there when we pitch a client, design a product, write our proposal, name our fee. It gives us confidence, makes us feel like there’s someone (albeit ourselves) on our side that thinks we’re the coolest. It holds our enemies (fear, insecurity and hopelessness) far away.

But when we get on the court — when the contract is signed, the marching orders are given, and we’re sitting down in front of the blank screen — it has to leave, vamoose, go away.

Because . . .

Because it isn’t for you or about you, this writing that you’re doing. It’s for your client. (Or if you’re building a business with your blog, it’s about your audience and prospective customers.)

It’s about them. Always. They really don’t care about you. They only care about what you can do for them.

If you want to be a better writer, you have to get the hell out of the way. Listen to them. Hear them. Make it about them.

We all know that you are wonderful. And it’s great to have creative outlets where we can let our writing personalities shine with enough watts to light up New York City.

Just don’t do it when you’re on the clock, or you won’t get the results you’re looking for. Your client will say your copy just didn’t hit the mark. Your audience will say that there was something missing.

And something was missing . . . they were. They couldn’t see their forest because of your trees.

Some people might rise up in protest at this point and say that each writer has a certain special, creative something . . . something that makes her work so successful.

I agree — it’s called skill. No one would deny the fact that we writers can wordsmith with the best of them, create concepts that defy gravity, know our way around a thesaurus, and can make it all look easy. That’s what makes us writers.

You still have to get out of the way and let your clients or audience shine through.

Yes, even shine all the way through your rock-hard ego. The one that we can’t live without, but sometimes need to put away.

About the Author: Lover of butter, wordplayer, marketing writer, ghostwriter, Julie Roads is the owner/founder of Writing Roads. Follow her on Twitter @writingroads.

Hello there. I’m Scott Tousignant your guest blogger for the week, helping you become super-focused and highly productive by incorporating home office fitness into your busy workday. Today I’m going to share a quickie cardio session that will help you burn off some of that Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing. You will also discover how living an active lifestyle can create greater networking opportunities, which can really give your business a boost.

Let’s talk networking since the NAMS 3 workshop is just around the corner. I absolutely love attending live events. It’s one of the best ways to connect with like-minded entrepreneurs.

If you have been to a live Internet Marketing event I have a question for you. Have there been people at these events that you found yourself immediately attracted to? I’m not asking whether or not you thought they were ‘hot’. I mean, did they radiate positive energy and come across as someone that you immediately wanted to learn more about.
Read the rest of this entry

When screenwriter John August wrote that only non-writers get writer’s block, some readers whined (and personally attacked him).

“But getting blocked does happen to real writers!” they cried.

They cried because they wanted to be victims, instead of responsible for their writing blocks. They whined because it was easier and less scary than facing the facts.

But when your income depends on your ability to write, whining won’t get you anywhere. It will distract you from the golden opportunity that writer’s block always offers: greater clarity and confidence.

When you work it right, writer’s block is your secret weapon to becoming a better and more resilient writer. And when your ability to write is what pays the bills, that’s gold.

How writer’s block can give you more clarity

Writing flows when you are clear on what you need to say, and why you need to say it. Writing becomes a chore when you know what you need to say but are reluctant to do it. And it can dry up completely when you’re not so clear anymore.

Your clarity is directly linked to how convinced you are that you have something valuable to say — and that you can say it.

Both of these require courage to face the fear that any act of writing brings.

So use writer’s block as a signal to stop and reflect on what you fear and why, because if you don’t acknowledge the fear, you’ll never be able to face it. All it takes to move through fear is facing it, feeling it. Saying to yourself, “Okay, this is scary. But it still needs to be done.”

How to start unblocking yourself

If you need some concrete steps to get started on identifying the fears related to your writer’s block, try the “clean-slate” exercise:

1. Take a blank sheet of paper and write down a one-line summary of what you think you’re supposed to be writing. Be as topic-specific and categorical as you can. Is it a book review, an online report, a sales page, a newsletter article?
2. Write down all the ideas and opinions about that topic that have been passed along to you by other people — things that you’ve read, heard, overheard, or even imagined. Don’t forget your parents, mentors, friends, role models. Record all those voices running around in your head and lay them out on the page.
3. Good. Now put that page aside because that’s not the one that’s going to turn your block into a weapon. (In fact, it’s the one that will keep you stuck.)
4. Get another blank sheet of paper.
5. Again, write down what you think you should be writing in the center of the page. Now, make sure you are alone in your room. There should be no one around to look over your shoulder, judge you, criticize you, or misunderstand you — in physical form or in your head. It’s important to maintain this solitude for the next step.
6. Dig deep into what you have to say, what you think, and what your opinion is, stripped away from all of those from the first sheet. Put it all out on the page, and take more pages if you need to. Remember, there is no one to judge you and your task is to write without any reference to the ideas or opinions from that first sheet, but write only from within you.

This second “clean-slate” page will reveal the true reason why you wanted to write in the first place.

It’s a safe place to get some clarity about what you need to say, without worrying about what anyone else will think. Going to that safe place gets you unstuck.

How writer’s block can boost your confidence

Each time you unblock yourself by writing despite your fears, it builds confidence. You realize, “Hey, I’ve got a lot to say! And I’ve got a unique position!”

You teach yourself that even though your job requires you to write to and for other people, you’re really doing it for yourself — whether for income, personal satisfaction, or even good conscience.

You also strengthen your writing so that nothing can faze it. You won’t get thrown off by anyone’s doubts (including your own), negative opinions, projections, or reservations about your ability to perform. Those will only cloud what you know you need to say.

Most important of all, you learn that writer’s block is all in the mind. That John’s whiny commentators missed out on a mother lode of resilience any writer would envy, because they ran away from writer’s block instead of picking it up as the weapon that it is.

To be a resilient and fierce writer, you need to write despite your fears. And you need signals, such as writer’s block, to help uncover your fears so you can face them.

Writer’s block can’t be separated from your doubt and fear. It’s something you are not a victim of, but responsible to. It can, and should, be faced head-on.

Preferably right now, if your next meal is waiting for that last page to get finished.

About the Author: Melissa Karnaze writes about the intelligence of emotions on Mindful Construct and Twitter.

You’ll see one theme come up again and again on Copyblogger. If you want to create real revenue with your blog, you need to have something worthwhile to sell.

Most sites are disappointed by the nickels and dimes that come in from advertising. If your site gets massive amounts of traffic, it can work, but if not, you’ll want to find a much more profitable source of revenue.

But most of us find that it’s not all that easy to translate high-quality content from your blog into a high-quality product for sale.

Four or five years ago, you could have slammed together an ebook over the weekend and created a decent income with it. But in the current environment, buyers are more careful with their money, and you’ve got an awful lot of competition.

The good news is, most of your competitors still think it’s 2003, and most of their products are astoundingly lame. And there are still lots of buyers who need to solve their most pressing problems.

So there are still plenty of opportunities to monetize with an ebook. But it has to be terrific.

So what makes a terrific ebook?

For an ebook to work in this climate, it needs to:

• Solidly address the problems, concerns, or desires of a well-defined target market. Vague, fluffy or irrelevant junk isn’t going to cut it.
• Be a meaningful extension of the relationship you’ve already created with your audience.
• Stake out a compelling position in the marketplace.
• Reflect the confidence of top-notch content.
• Provide an exceptional return on investment for buyers.
• Be supported by an intelligent marketing system that fuels your customers’ need to buy.

The enemy of the successful ebook

So to create an ebook that works today, you’ve got a few more steps to take.

First you’ve got to research your market. Then you need to build a list and drive buying readers to your blog. (There can be a big difference between fans and customers.) Then research, outline, and actually write the book. And then you’ve got to figure out the whole launch thing: creating buzz, recruiting and managing affiliates, writing a sales page.

We bloggers are pretty good at taking action. We can do any of these things individually. And to tell you the truth, none of them is all that hard.

But take them all together and we find ourselves overwhelmed.

Before we know it, it’s been six months or a year, and we’re still trying to make it happen. Not because it’s beyond our abilities, but because without a detailed map, it’s easy to get lost in the process.

How to get it done

When I first picked up How to Launch the **** Out of Your Ebook, I didn’t read it right away. I figured I knew everything that would be in there, and I had so much on my plate.

When I finally got around to taking a close look at it, I was surprised. This wasn’t a simple connect-the-dots guide for newbies. There was real meat here. A lot of which was, in fact, incredibly useful to me.

I know the course creators and I’ve been consistently impressed with them, so it’s not like I thought it was going to be garbage. But I was still surprised at how extensive the course turned out to be.

How to Launch the **** Out of Your Ebook was created by launch expert Dave Navarro and small business marketing rockstar Naomi Dunford.

(Don’t worry, it isn’t full of curse words despite Naomi’s involvement. In fact, I think the missing word is Heck, don’t you?)

In five concise modules, How to Launch covers the entire process of writing an ebook that sells.

• How to research your market in 30 minutes or less. (If you don’t get this part right, you’re dead before you begin.)
• The simple strategy to drive targeted buyers to your blog.
• What to do when you don’t have enough time to write, and dozens of techniques that will keep your momentum going.
• How to convince big names to review your ebook.
• How to create a sales process that works.
• How to pick the right affiliate program, and how to find affiliates once you’ve made your choice.

The course is quite comprehensive, so I won’t bog this post down with the entire table of contents. But the thing that impressed me most was that wherever you might happen to get stuck, they’ve got the information to get you moving again.

True confessions

• Naomi and Dave are both friends of mine, and Naomi and I do business together. I’ve been following their stuff for a couple of years now, and I think they do exceptional work.
• The links in this review are affiliate links. So Copyblogger will make something on the sale, although not nearly as much as you will if you implement the advice you get in the program.

The worst confession is how long I’ve been sitting on this, because I’ve been meaning to review it for ages. But in light of the conversations Brian and I have been having about what kind of material we’ll be recommending from this point forward, I thought this was just about the perfect time.

Click here to get more details about How to Launch the **** Out of Your Ebook.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication.